A new book (by Victor Farias) on Chilean President Salvador Allende is causing a stir by suggesting that the now-legendary icon of the left -- who killed himself during a 1973 putsch -- was both racist and anti-Semitic...

In many ways, the young Dr. Allende was, indeed, in line with the Fascism-infected streams that were so prevalent during the first half of the last century. For example, he argued that mental illnesses, criminal behavior, and alcoholism were hereditary. Or further, he argued that homosexuality is an illness curable by implanting testicle tissue into the abdomen. Another example: Allende proclaimed that the hot climate prevented people in southern regions from acting morally. Referring to other studies, Allende wrote ominously about Jews in his dissertation saying, "The Hebrews are well-known committers of certain types of crimes including: fraud, deceit, defamation, but most notably usury."

... Allende served as health minister in that (1939-1942) administration and promoted a law on the forced sterilization of the mentally ill. The law was never passed.

(Farias) writes that the new revelations about Allende give more meaning to Allende's refusal to turn Nazi criminal Walter Rauff over to Germany in 1972, after Rauff had found refuge in Chile. Even attempts by the Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal to intervene with the president failed at the time. In a letter, Allende responded that the president was not allowed to get involved in judicial matters. Formally speaking, Allende was right. Chile's Supreme Court had previously ruled that Rauff -- who had been a senior official in the SS and headed the development of portable death chambers -- could not be handed over because the statute of limitations on his case had expired.

...Farias, meanwhile, calls the accusations from the Allende camp "rubbish" and points to the clear words taken from Allende's dissertation.

For the record, the young Allende received a mediocre grade for his dissertation.

(Emphasis added.)

So Comrade Allende thought like a Nazi, and like the top man, when opposing forces closed in on his armoured bunker, he took the coward's way out.

So he was a right-wing Jew-hater as well as a left-wing tyrant.

Say to yourself, "There is no contradiction..." Repeat as necessary.

Why not? It worked for Francois Mitterand.

Don't stand in front of the memory hole. This one is headed straight for it, at supersonic speed.